DaGreatGazoo

I often wonder what Eric buys Keith Jones for Christmas every year? Gotta be something fantastic Ya know, for the whole saving his life and everything.

I've stayed out of this for most of the day, but I'm not really sure how anyone can argue that was not a charging penalty. Yes, Schenn turned, and that's what resulted in him hitting the boards. Even if he doesn't turn, it's still charging. For God's sake, what if Rinaldo, Matt Cooke, or any other "repeat offender" makes that hit?? We are talking 5-10 games. Easily. So, why does a guy with no history make the hit less egregious??? To me, that's the biggest hypocrisy in hockey. A bad hit, is a bad hit..regardless of who throws it. I don't think it's a dirty hit, as I classify them(like a crosscheck from 2 feet away, or a blantant head shot), but it's a reckless hit, and the EXACT type of hit the league continues to discourage. He'll get a few games simple for that reason.

THIS! ^^^^^^^

Well, HEY! Look at the new member we have. Welcome to the board!!

I literally saw from the Schenn hit until the end of the game--kids had hockey. At the time of the Schenn hit, it was 2-2. I can't comment on the game before that, didn't' see it. The major changed the game, as it should have. Flyers needed to respond to that it. And the did. It was a very solid win. I HATED the Berube hire. I can't stress that enough. I hated, hated, hated it. That being said, I appear to have been wrong. I like what this team has done under him. I think he has the foundations of being a very good coach at this level. I am REALLLLYYY not trying to be one of those Flyers fans. But this team got SMOKED by Dallas, lost a shootout to Ottawa, and blew a 3 goal lead, in 3 of their last 6 games. IMO, that's not the sign of a good team. They are inconsistent, struggle against quality teams, and again, IMO, don't have the talent to compete with the top teams in either conference. I don't think that makes me a bad fan. Not saying you called me one. I watch every game I can, I root for them with all I can, I yell/bitch/swear like the rest of us, and I will be on Broad Street the next time they win a Cup. I just don't think it will be next June.

What ledge? I've never hated on Cooter, and his line as been the best on the team since Downie was brought in. I was concerned when he regressed badly last year, but he has played well this season. I still don't think this is a very good team. There are too many holes, on too many lines right now. I also think they could miss the playoffs, simply due to format. They top 3 in each division go(6 teams) and 2 wildcards. I'm not convinced the Metro will put any Wild Card teams in the post season. Yes, the Flyers are 1 point out of 3rd right now; but they are also 3 points from 2nd to last in their division. To me, that's about where they belong, right in the middle of the pack. I'm not sure that's good enough to make the playoffs. Hope they do, but am not sure right now.

Hee hee hee.....

I could see someone that needs a Dman taking him near the deadline, for next to nothing. He'd be cheap/experienced playoff help for someone, and he's a UFA--so no long-term commitment involved. Other than that, I don't see a market for him either.

This has me laughing my ass off.

Not familiar with this writer, but he HAS to be on this site. This could have been written by any of us. Nothing earthshattering, or even new, but thought I'd share it anyway. I have long defended Flyers GM Paul Holmgren, mainly because I feel that his troubles and larger mistakes have come from meddling from above. It might be time I changed that stance. To review, Holmgren assumed the mantle of GM during the darkest season in Flyers history, and rebuilt them into a Stanley Cup contender in a very short time period. Granted he had some very solid building blocks and assets to move, as well as a load of cap room, but he did well to augment the building blocks and add pieces needed. In the first full season under Holmgren’s stewardship, the Flyers reached the Eastern Conference Final. Two years later, they made it to the Stanley Cup Final before bowing out to the champion Chicago Blackhawks. Holmgren has proven he can build a bad team into a contender. Unfortunately, his ability to maintain a contender seems to be lacking. After the 2010 Finals, Holmgren started to systematically disassemble the team he built. Now, just three years after reaching the Final, the Flyers have just 4 active players from that team-Claude Giroux, Scott Hartnell, Kimmo Timonen & Braydon Coburn. A fifth-Chris Pronger-lingers on LTIR, even though his career as an active NHL player is over. Since that run to the Final, the Flyers have progressive finished worse than the season before. In 2011 & 2012, they got destroyed in the second round of the playoffs, being swept by Boston and losing in 5 games(losing the last 4 straight) to New Jersey. They missed the playoffs in the shortened 2013 season and this year got off to the worst start in franchise history, firing head coach Peter Laviolette in the process. The franchise is definitely not trending in the right direction. The fingerprints of Ed Snider are on the scene, but there’s definitely mistakes by Holmgren that have little to do with Snider’s involvement. Snider might dictate publicly that the Flyers are going to “solve” the goaltending issue once and for all & basically force Holmgren to bid against himself in the free agent market. But Snider didn’t order Holmgren to trade James van Riemsdyk for a slow footed defenseman. Snider wasn’t demanding the Flyers sign a 35 year old defenseman to an over 35 contract. The Flyers are a talented team of ill-fitting parts that lack any real identity. They lack a true number one defenseman and have a group of large, slow defensemen that lack puck skills and offensive instincts. The defensemen that are offensively inclined are older players that are limited by age or two way ability. Up front they have too many players that have a “pass first” mentality or rely on grinding out plays to score dirty, garbage goals. These are items that fall directly on Holmgren’s door step. The worrisome thing to me is that they seem to be repeating mistakes. Hasty, long term extensions to player after one good year and long terms deals with no move clauses to veterans that outperformed their normal levels in a contract year. A seeming “OHHH!! Shiny!! Approach to free agency. Using higher draft picks to add grit and “energy” players, and ignoring more highly skilled and highly rated players. As construed right now, the Flyers are a team that has skill, but lacks hockey sense and discipline. They have a crisis of confidence and resolve. They have serious issues in the transition game, both offensively and defensively, and have some very glaring needs that won’t be cheap or easy to fill. I’m not sure that Holmgren is the guy that can restore an identity and fix the myriad issues facing this team. I’m not even sure if he should be the guy given an opportunity to try. http://thehockeyguys.net/putting-foil-jsaquella-long-defending-mind-changed-paul-holmgren/

Didn't Nodl outscore Jagr one year?

HA HA HA!! Well done, Sami!!!

All kidding aside about how I call Raffl the next Gretzky; I never said the kid was the 2nd coming of a hockey god, and he may still crash and burn, and never be heard from again. He struggled early, there's no doubt. He also has never played in a North American rink. There's bound to be an adjustment period, and some struggles. Granted, that usually happens in the AHL, but for whatever reason, Berube/Flyers have decided to let that happen in the NHL. He works hard every shift, he is defensively responsible, and as others have said, he can skate. I would argue he's faster than 2/3's of the Flyers forwards. God knows this team needs some speed. Everyone talks about letting kids develop and not giving up on them, this kid has been on this continent for 4 months, and people have been killing him. I don't get it. Also, in those 4 months, the kid has gone from being scratched, to the 4th line, to killing penalties and playing on the 1st line. Yeah, he sucks..

The only reason I can think of to call any player up and not play them is insurance. Fill out the roster, make sure you have bodies. For instance, someone gets the flu, a bad hangover, a case of a bad call girl..who knows what....anyway, someone can't go, and you need to throw a body into the lineup. You're covering your a**. If you don't need him, you send him packing, back to the AHL. That's the ONLY thing I can think of. Cause it really makes no sense, as others have said.

CMON. Let's not get carried away now!!

It wasn't until around 3 a.m. on Thanksgiving, when the Flyers arrived home from a Florida trip in which the they were swept by the Lightning and Panthers. The team was given the holiday off by coach Craig Berube and if there was a player who deserved a day to kick back, watch some football and relax, it was Steve Mason. November was a good month for the Flyers goaltender. He finished it with a 6-2-2 record, 1.94 goals-against average and, most, impressively a .938 save percentage. You have to go back to December 2008 to find a month in which he started at least 10 games and had a save percentage that high. That was his breakout rookie season in Columbus, the year that, in retrospect, might have not have been the best way for a 20-year-old goalie to break into the NHL. At 10 a.m. on Thanksgiving, Mason passed on the day off and was on the ice in Philadelphia with a few shooters, getting ready for a game the following day that came with an 11:30 a.m. start. And he was nearly perfect against the Jets that following day, stopping 25 of 26 shots to squash a losing streak before it could get started. Those who know him well questioned if Mason would have been willing to put in that work a few years prior with his ego still inflated from one of the most impressive rookie seasons any goalie has completed in recent memory. Later in his tenure in Columbus, when overconfidence wasn't an issue, the loss of trust and confidence between him and his former team made it hard to dig deep and put in extra effort. Those excuses are gone. Still just 25 years old, Mason is learning an important lesson with his second organization -- talent alone won't cut it. "You get rewarded with the work you put in," Mason told ESPN The Magazine. "It's just realizing that you have a second opportunity to be a No. 1 goalie in the league. It's something I'm trying to achieve long-term. You get to the point in your career where you understand that in order to become one of the best goalies in the league, you have to work like it." It's been less than a year since Columbus GM Jarmo Kekalainen gave permission to Mason's agent, Anton Thun, to call around the league to try to find a new home for Mason, whose time in Columbus was cooked. Mason was due a qualifying offer north of $3 million and withSergei Bobrovsky on his way to a Vezina, the Blue Jackets made it clear that qualifying offer wasn't coming from them. . A few weeks before the trade deadline, Thun was given the green light to find a new home for his client. He worked the phones and not surprisingly there wasn't a rush to trade for a guy with a sub-.900 save percentage and reputation as someone who still had maturing to do. "It was limited, no doubt," Thun said. "Two or three teams in particular expressed a significant amount of interest. Philly was one of them." Despite its reputation as a goaltending graveyard, Philadelphia appealed to Thun. There was a trust there with goalie coach Jeff Reese, who was also a client of Thun's. The two once even lived together. The expectation was that starter Ilya Bryzgalov was going to be bought out in the offseason and this was still a team with playoff-caliber talent elsewhere. Players, including Jacub Voracek, Mason knew well. The catch? The Flyers weren't doing the deal without a contract extension at a deeply discounted rate. Nothing close to the $3.2 million qualifying offer. In fact, it ended up being less than half that number. "It was literally Steve's decision to OK the trade to Philadelphia," Thun said. "That was a place where if Steve performed well, he would have the opportunity." To his credit, Mason has seized that opportunity. The early stages of December haven't been quite as kind to Mason. In his first three starts this month, he was 1-1-1, with a 4.01 goals-against average and .884 save percentage. Perhaps we're seeing the start of a statistical regression to totals closer to his career save percentage of .907. Overall this season, Mason is 10-9-3 with a .927 save percentage. Mason has lost weight, is in great condition and playing a simpler game. He's staying back in net more and his patience playing that style has helped with consistency. If he can maintain that .926 save percentage over the course of the season, which is certainly a big if, the Flyers will remain in the hunt. Credit Mason and Reese for getting a talented young goalie's career back on track. "Everything that we've done is such a simple tweak, but at the same time it's made just huge improvements upon my game," Mason said. "It's made me feel confident in what I'm doing out there. In previous seasons, I was doing different styles of play that I wasn't comfortable with, and it was frustrating me not being able to play that way. Jeff is really taking what I'm comfortable with and making it work." There are certainly still those who need to be convinced that Mason can maintain his impressive Philadelphia production over the long run. "I don't believe the hype," said one NHL scout. "God bless him, though. He's been good. He's been really good." Mason's contract is up again after this season and it's going to be an interesting negotiation, considering the hangover that has to exist following the Bryzgalov buyout. Talk to players in the Flyers dressing room, and Mason has completely won them over. There's a confidence there that Mason feeds off and it works both ways. "He's been the same way he played his first year in Columbus," Voracek said. "He was so excited to be here. He said his confidence level was very low. He came to Philly, he was happy to be in the net. When he has the confidence, he's unbelievable." Thun said there haven't been any meaningful talks yet and he's in no rush to get an extension done. Technically, one couldn't be signed until January, anyway, since he signed a one-year deal worth $1.5 million in April. The Flyers have long been looking for a goalie and if they're convinced Mason is the guy, an extension for Mason might be one of the first deals done in the new year. There might be doubters elsewhere but Mason has sold the man who matters most. "He's been incredible," Flyers owner Ed Snider told ESPN The Magazine on Tuesday. "He should have a great record because he's kept us in games we lost. We could have lost by four or five goals and [were] in the game all the way to the end. He's done an incredible job for us. We're thrilled to have him." Snider has been burned before by giving big money and term to a goalie. He was asked if recent history would scare him off from doing it again. "No," he said, then smiled. "We never learn from our mistakes."

@Stevie Triangle Hey Stevie...welcome to the board!

Funny how you are an expert on EVERTHING, as it relates to the Flyers, but SOMEHOW forgot they bought out their STARTING goalie from last year AND their highest paid(cap-hit) forward. That is impossible to forget. ANY casual fan of this team would remember that, or maybe you conveniently forgot it, when arguing one of our moronic points. You sir or ma'am are a troll, and onto "ignore" you go. As I said in my post from yesterday, go back to Silly.com. There are other morons there, that would be happy to accommodate you. This is actually a serious hockey board,with informed posters; who can rationally and logically formulate discussions, and also have dissenting opinions with out acting like a 13 year old--a concept that seems to escape you on an daily basis. NO ONE can call themselves a Flyers fan and FORGET they bought out Bryz and Briere. No one!!!! The monkey NASA sent to the Moon in 1949 knows they bought Bryz and Briere out. Feel free to argue and call me an idiot, like you've already done. Feel free to call other people idiots or fools-like you've already done, feel free to tell them how much they don't know about the game. You've revealed yourself as a fraud and a troll. A troll that knows NOTHING about the game, the Flyers, or how to have a logical discussion. Take your narcissistic *ss somewhere else. Let the real hockey fans discuss the game here.

That was me as well; I understood why they signed him and I didn't dislike the move. I hated the contract the day it was signed and still do. It's too long, and has the ever present NMC/NTC. You are correct about his skating/outlet passing but he doesn't do either enough in my opinion. He should be doing "good" things and winning most of his shifts. Instead he loses a lot of his shifts and almost always seems to make the wrong/bad play. I don't hate the guy. I'm more disappointed at how, well, disappointing his play has been. I hope he can become the player the Flyers were expecting. Lord knows they could use that player!

10000% agree with this statement. To me, he has done little/none of what he was signed to do, and has brought little/nothing of what he was supposed to have done for the NYI. Then you compound it with terrible defensive play(never his strong suit anyway) and it amounts to a brutal signing 3 months in. Hopefully, he can find his sea legs and figure things out.

Just remember what Uncle Ed said..."We don't need a culture change " That's ALL we need to know about how this organization thinks. :wacko:

Thanks..I almost spit coffee all over my keyboard after reading this. So sad...so funny...so true...

Right now, Capgeek.com projects the Flyers to have $16.7 million in cap space for 2014-15 if the cap goes to $71 million. Per Timmy P today.

Dude, what the **** is your ******* problem? Trying to have some fun, and your acting like a total ******* asshole calling me an idiot. Go **** yourself...and go back to silly.com where you childish ass belongs.

So, given this logic, I fully expect you to say Raffl played well last night then.